The Flu That Never Was
by The Konfessionist
Summary: A small look at five survivors at the beginning of a zombie outbreak in Oregon.


**A/N: Hey guys! I'm sorry I've been away for so long D: Needed a break from fanfiction, you know? Hit a pretty thick brick wall for some of my Fallout 3 stories and needed a little time off to collect my thoughts and relax my mind- if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to bring you guys some good chapters!**

**Anywho, obviously this story has nothing to do with Fallout 3 what. So. EVER! This is actually the first fanfiction I had EVER written- I wrote this when I was abooout... 12, maybe 13. I tweaked it a bit (there actually wasn't a lot I had to change, I just fixed it up a bit) but I'm sure there's things I still need to fix. I wanted to keep it as close to the original as I possibly could, so the only thing I fixed was grammar and spelling (which was no easy task, and I'm positive there are still more errors dotted here and there that I missed D:)**

**I wanted to post this as an "I'm Sorry For Being Gone So Long" present xD**

**As a side note, I am putting this as COMPLETED. I am NOT expanding past this chapter or using these characters in any other stories. -shrugs- I just don't feel the need to. I feel like if I do add more chapters, it'll take away the feeling of being my first fanfiction- plus, I don't even know what direction I should go towards with this. I have my plate full of other ongoing stories, and if you're wondering why I have so many up right now, that's so I don't get bored continuously writing one- I jump between them so I can keep things entertaining and my mind flowing with ideas.**

**But I'll stop talking now! I hope you enjoy :D**

**Happy reading, happy writing**

**~Konfessionist out!~**

* * *

_I__t's been three days. I've been holed up in this room, for three days...__**Three! **__It only seems like a big deal because those three days felt like three months, I guess..._

I look through the barred window, and I see them. I see them _all_. The sick, the so-called "infected". CEDA called it a flu, a minor outbreak that gave people severe headaches, nausea, sensitivity to loud or high-pitched noises, and you always felt restless... Soon enough CEDA realized that the infected had an _interesting_ craving for raw human flesh and bone marrow.

I looked at the writing on the walls; "_**CEDA isn't coming for us!**_", "_**CEDA lied!**_", and one that I have seen, what seemed to feel like hundreds of times, in the past three days; "_**This is **__**NOT **__**a flu!**_" written in big red letters.

These haunting red words burned into my mind, every letter of that sentence echoed in the silent room, giving an eye-opening reminder of our situation. We want help from the people who seem to be the bad guys, unless these writings were false accusations from the type of people who knew from the beginning the world would be over-run with people who turn into brain-sucking zombies.

I looked up at my teammates, some I enjoyed having as company, and some of them...Not so much. There are four of us, five when the infection had started until three days previous. We had lost the only other girl on our team- her name was Katie Hunt. Katie had turned fifteen two weeks before the outbreak had completely gone public, and it had destroyed her perfect world of parties and the sense of a care-free environment with all the money her parents had when she woke up that morning and said parents tried to eat her. By the end of the fight and flurry of snapping teeth, grabbing limbs, and wide hungry eyes, her father was laying on the floor of their expensive kitchen in a pool of his own blood and his skull smashed in, her mother floating in their large pool with a kitchen knife jutting from between her ribs, finally able to rest as the dead. _Not _the undead.

"Well," A man with black hair and bright grey-blue eyes started. "We're going to need to go outside soon. We're running low on water, and I think it's time we get some fresh air, don't you think?" He smirked and leaned forward in his chair, flipping his flick knife around his fingers.

The moment we agreed to stay as a group he had made himself leader quite quickly. Name: Arin Wilkis, Type: A _real_ humanitarian, the type that wouldn't take no for an answer, and if he didn't get what he wanted he resorted to the tactics of a two year old. So, in a nutshell, he's a grade-A asshole.

"No way in _hell_ am I going back out there again!" Harlan shrieked.

Name: Harlan Rodgers. Tall, a bit lanky with hazel-green eyes and shaggy blonde hair.

He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, beginning to stare down at Arin, as if daring him to pick a fight.

"Great! Than you can stay in here like the little pansy that you are Heidi." Arin grinned mischievously and stood up, grabbing his gun that was propped against his chair.

Harlan's face turned red with anger and he glared at him. "You know what? Go fuck yourself Arin!"

"Guys, cool it!" I exclaimed. "Fighting isn't going to get us anywhere, especially now. Arin is right Harlan, all though I hate to admit it, we need more water. But Harlan is right too, Arin," I took a moment to smile as he raised an eyebrow at me inquisitively.

"Harlan's right? 'Bout what?"

I smiled more. "You _can_ go fuck yourself. You've been looking a little frustrated lately, when was the last time you got laid?"

I heard Jeremy chuckle from his corner, hearing his heavy chair groan across the wooden floor as he stood up. "I'm all for getting water. I read that you can go for weeks without food, but without water the effects are a pain in the ass." Jeremy Marlins, typical brainiac.

Before we locked ourselves up in this damned Safe House he saved all of our sorry hides. _Twice_.

Harlan sighed in defeat as Jeremy and Arin walked to the other side of the room, discussing how to obtain water as easily and quickly as possible. I walked over to him and patted his back sympathetically.

"It's all right Harlan, we all know Arin is a creep. Just ignore him."

He looked up at me, still a little frustrated, but nodded in agreement and smiled a little.

"Thanks for helping me out Audrey."

I shook my head and smiled back, slapping him on the back playfully hard.

"Anytime big guy!"

We continued to talk amongst ourselves before Arin and Jeremy finally stopped discussing and returned back to us with a conclusion.

"First of all, since Arin and I aren't from the area so we need a map or someone who knows this place like the back of their hand. Suggestions?"

"Harlan and I were born here but we don't know the place _that_ well... I saw a map somewhere upstairs. I'll go get it."

Before he could add anything on to his sentence, I darted up the stairs in search for the town map. I walked through the bedroom and the guestroom, no luck, when I finally remembered seeing it in the main room. I walked back to it and started searching through an old, antique roll-top desk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the edge of the map sticking out from one of the lower drawers. I grabbed the drawer, yanked it open, and took my prize.

_Drip. Drip. Drip._

_What the hell is that?_ I thought to myself, looking around. _Sounds like a faucet..._

Shrugging it off, I turned around to go back down the stairs, when my eyes caught sight of a horrifying scene. It was one of the barred windows. One of the _open_ barred windows.

I could feel my breathing turn shallow and difficult to inhale, as if now the world's biggest problem was a lack of oxygen rather than a surplus of zombies. Panicked thoughts rattled through my skull as blood rapidly pumped through my crazed heart and my sore head.

The window was shattered, sharp shards of glass were scattered all around the base of the window in a circle, and the metal bars were bent in and broken. I took note of the blood dripping down the broken bars and glass and onto the wooden floor, sustaining the rhythmic tune of the _drip, drip, drip._

_How could we not hear this? How could we__**not**__hear something break in?_ My thoughts pulsed.

The map clutched in my sweaty, shaking hand as I took off down the stairs, almost missing the last step and I caught myself on the floor. I quickly recovered and went to the guys.

"I think we need to find a new Safe House gentlemen," I pushed past Arin and Harlan to Jeremy, slapping the town map against his chest and grabbed my pistol off the table, putting it in the shiny black holster on my thigh and held a fire axe tightly in my hand.

"Audrey? What's wrong?" Harlan walked over to me and laid a gentle hand on my back. I looked up at him, trying to keep my heart from pounding itself out of my ribcage.

"While I was upstairs getting the map, I saw one of the windows." I looked over to Arin and Jeremy as they came over to listen. "It was_ broken! _There was blood and glass on the floor... Something got in, and I refuse to stay in a _Safe House_ that isn't _safe_ anymore."

"Well that's good. We need a change of scenery anyways." Arin grabbed the map from Jeremy and laid it out onto the table. "Oh look, it's even color-coded, how cute!"

"Arin? Now isn't exactly the time to be admiring artistic detail!" Harlan warned.

"Says here areas marked with a red X are places crawling with the infected. Areas with the drawing of an orange house are Safe Houses, and areas with a purple triangle are places that we can restock at. Ammo, guns, food supply, you name it."

"Yeah, but you've failed to notice a few things, Captain Oblivious." Jeremy pointed out in a matter-of-factly-tone and gazed down at the map, pointing at an orange Safe House drawing with a giant red X slashed across it.

"If my memory serves me right, _this_ would be our safe house, on the corner of Lakeshire and Osmond Road. Now if _your_ memory serves you right, what does the large red X mean Arin?" His voice changed among the last sentence, speaking as if Arin was a toddler having difficulty understanding something.

He glared at Jeremy. "Yeah, yeah, you got me. So what's the plan?"

"Well, first things first of all we need a way to get out of here without alerting a bunch of them. Second of all, by the scale of this map, the nearest Safe House should be..." He took a moment to calculate, scaling the map in his mind. "Two miles from here, if not more, should take us almost an hour by foot. My _main _concern is that we will not be making it there in one piece."

He looked back up at Arin, who looked a little concerned himself.

"Maybe we should take a few more moments to go over the game plan?" Harlan suggested as he pointed towards the stairs. "And while going over it I think one of us should go upstairs and take care of whatever snuck in."

He scanned each of us with wide eyes, and we all looked back and forth at each other.

I sighed impatiently. "Do we _really_ need to do this again?"

They all looked at one another before turning back to me and nodded in unison.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine."

We each held out our hands, engaging in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. I, of course, won, along with Jeremy and Harlan. I guess you can understand what happened to Arin.

He grabbed his assault rifle and started trudging towards the stairs, and he stared at them as if they were beckoning to him like death row, slowly trekking up them with lead-heavy feet. I returned my attention to the abandoned map and stood over it, studying it carefully, occasionally biting my lip in thought.

"We need to find a place to restock before taking a shot at the Safe House. What are the restocking stations again?"

Jeremy pointed to a purple triangle. "There, a small convenience store just up the road. It's on the one mile mark between here and the Safe House."

I looked back down to the map. "Then we need a fast way to get there, faster than by foot anyways."

Harlan came over and studied the map as well, his eyelids suddenly flying wide open. "There!" He pointed down at a long road going towards the store with the purple supply triangle.

Jeremy looked at Harlan peculiarly. "Would you mind explaining what you are exactly pointing at?"

"Thought you would have picked up on it already… See this? It's the main drag leading over to the grocery store where we can get supplies."

"So?" I asked questioningly.

"Didn't you notice the last time we were out there, the street had tons of abandoned cars?"

"I recall that. People must have been in such a rush to get down to the escape ports that they ran for it instead of stay in traffic..." Jeremy thought aloud.

"Yeah, so what if we get a car, drive it back down to the Safe House, load it up and take off towards the Grocer's for a little restock?" Harlan proposed.

Jeremy scratched his head, thinking over his idea.

"May not be the best idea, but it's the only idea we have." He finally said. "So why come back to reload the car?"

"We have everything we need here, minus water. What if we just took off with our guns and the car, got to the store, and found that it was empty? May I remind you that this is a town with only _one_ grocery store? People probably took what they could before hauling ass to the docks." Harlan stated.

I nodded in agreement. "I see what you mean- smart."

"Well, I can honestly say, _now_ you're thinking like a Marlins. Hey," Jeremy looked to the stairs. "What's taking Arin so long? He could have traveled to the Moon and back already."

Harlan removed his eyes from the map and looked up at me. "Are you _positive_ something got in?"

"Well, I didn't actually _see_ anything… But I know the window wasn't broken this morning, and I'm sure as hell not going to stay in a-"

A loud, unexpected crash echoed from upstairs, making us all jump in response. Then, there was silence.

"A-Arin? Are you okay?" I walked towards the stairs, fire axe held nestled in my hands.

Another loud crash echoed down the stairway, but instead of followed by silence, it was followed by a terrified yell from Arin.

"_Help! Get this thing __**off**__ me!_"

I took off up the stairs, Jeremy and Harlan pursuing me. I screeched to a halt when I sailed over the last step, shaking at the sight of what I saw.

A tall man who as obviously one of the infected. But he was _horrifically_ different. Sickly green smoke emitted from his throat, large greasy boils clumped around his neck and shoulder and across the side of his face like a bundle of red apples on a grocery store shelf. A long tongue was emerged from his wide, deformed mouth and was wrapped tightly around Arin's neck, across his waist, and down one of his legs.

"W-What the _hell_ is that?" Harlan shrieked, stepping back with his face twisted in horror.

"I don't know!" I screamed back, holding up my axe in defense.

"_Just get his fucking thing off me you__**bastards!**_" He screamed at us.

I dropped my axe and yanked my pistol out of its holster, desperately trying to take aim with the gun shaking in my hand, my trigger finger feeling frighteningly itchy. I finally closed my eyes and pressed against the trigger.

A shrieking noise sharply rang out and reached my ears as something blasted into my face. I inhaled quickly, hoping to breathe in oxygen, but instead caught the putrid scent of something in the air. I hacked at the toxicity of it. I slowly opened my eyes and gazed down at the once alive infected man. His tongue was broken and bleeding out, the boils had burst and were now releasing completely black smoke and a blackish-green fluid that pooled around the body on the floor. I noticed a large gash on his side, his shirt torn and soaked with his own blood.

_So I was right! Something__**did**__get in!_I gagged in disgust and turned away quickly, again coughing violently into my hand.

I watched from the corner of my shaky vision as Arin, disgustedly, unwrapped the tongue hanging loosely around his shaking body and threw it at the floor. I would have sighed in relief, but wanted to avoid inhaling more of the strange smoke, and with one hand I helped him remove the tongue, using my other hand to fan the smoke away.

"Are y-you all right?" I stuttered worriedly, he nodded in return and swallowed hard, looking back down at the corpse.

"Y-Yeah…Damn thing just scared me out of my wits."

I smiled a little. "Pansy."

He smirked at me with challenge, still panting hard and shaking visibly. "O- Oh yeah? Well, you shoot like a girl. _With your eyes closed!_"

Laughing, I replied; "I shoot a _hell_ of a lot better than you! So what does that make _you_ Mr. Wilkis?"

"Ooh, say that again, it makes me feel like I'm a _big businessman_ and you're my _naughty_ little secretary."

"Smartass." I shoved him roughly, Jeremy knelt over the infected corpse.

"This is strange... I haven't seen this kind of infection before." He looked up at us, worry screaming in his dark brown eyes. "What if there are more like him? Just _waiting_ for us to walk outside and get our asses handed to us on a silver platter?"

"Marlins' is right," Harlan piped up. "What the hell is this thing anyways?"

He shook his head. "I haven't the slightest clue." He admitted, looking back down at it.

"Maybe it came out from the virus?"

He stood up and backed away to keep the growing puddle of blackish-green fluid from reaching his shoes.

"I don't think so, even if it was a deformity from the virus it wouldn't be able to come to the extent of a completely different species of infected. I mean, look at it! It's been a week since we got together, three days since we last ventured outside, and _never_ have _any_ of us seen something quite like this!"

We all nodded in agreement.

"Something tells me it's better that we _don't_ find wherever the hell this thing came from," Arin kicked the corpse, turned, and walked down the stairs casually. "C'mon kiddies, we gotta figure out what to do. I'm with Aubrey, I wanna get the fuck out of here."

I huffed heatedly and placed my hands firmly on my broad hips. "It's _Audrey,_ asshole!"

He waved uncaringly at me, still walking down the stairs. "Whatever."

I clenched my fists at my sides. "That ungrateful ass should be kissing my feet for saving him!"

"Doesn't matter, he's probably more worried about getting his clothes dirty than repaying you for keeping him alive." Harlan stated.

Jeremy smirked in agreement and followed after Arin, Harlan and I behind him. I stopped to take one last look at the body, shuddering, than jumped down the stairs quickly.

"So what's our plan, Marlins?" Arin asked.

"Audrey suggested finding a faster means of transportation to the store. Harlan said we should get a car from the street, bring it back here, and load it up before taking off." Jeremy towered over the map again, tracing different roads with his fingertip.

"How the hell are we gunna get the car to run?" Arin circled around the table to Jeremy.

"People obviously left in a hurry, leaving keys in their cars in the rush for the last seats on the ships at the escape docks. If no keys, we can always hot-wire a car you know."

Harlan seemed to hesitate, before shyly raising his hand up. "I can do that..."

I looked at him, utterly shocked. "You? Out of _those_ two," I jerked a finger to the other two boys, and they glanced at each other with curiosity as well. "Know how to hot-wire a car?"

He averted his eyes from me. "Look, I didn't exactly lead a perfect life before the outbreak, okay? I had a rough childhood."

_What kind of childhood would be so bad as to need to learn how to hot-wire a car?..._

"So, who's going out to get the car?" I wondered aloud. "We should go together for good cover, but another option might be one or two of us. Just in case CEDA comes to rescue us, and someone can at least tell them about that thing that grabbed Arin."

Anger flashed into Arin's strong grey-blue eyes, he balled his fists at his sides till his knuckles turned white.

"Why the fuck should we have _any_ reason to go to them when they tried to keep the outbreak a secret? They seemed so okay with innocent people turning into fucking monsters and killing their loved ones! But, I mean hey, just as long as it wasn't someone they knew, right?" He said coldly.

_Whoa, what the hell's gotten into him?_ I wondered._ He's definitely got __**something**__ out for CEDA..._

"Calm down Arin," Jeremy started cautiously. "We need to let them know because then they might be persuaded into working faster to find a cure."

Arin shook his head, taking out his pack of cigarettes and his lucky green lighter. "All I have to say is _fuck__**CEDA**_."

"I know they haven't exactly been kind to you, but they haven't done good by the rest of us either. So stop acting like a little school girl with hurt feelings and get your shit together Wilkis, we got to get out of here soon. So," Jeremy turned to Harlan and I, "Everyone else knows what to do when we get out of here?"

We both nodded.

"Then grab a weapon and let's go. We each look out for each other, we can't take chances if there's more like that thing upstairs outside."

Harlan grabbed his favorite shotgun from the corner with his pistol already in his holster, Arin retrieving his assault rifle from upstairs and picked his flick knife up from the floor. I kept my pistol and my fire axe, Jeremy looked at all of us.

"There's nothing left for me to use." He pointed out in monotone.

"Heidi, give the man your weapons. We'll cover your ass while you're hot-wiring the car."

Harlan glared at him, handing his shotgun to Jeremy. "Fine," He grumbled. "But I'm keeping the pistol, it's mine after all."

"Honestly? I don't care Hei-"

"If you call me Heidi _one more_ time I swear to God I'm going to shoot off the only other pride you have left in this world!"

"Ladies, stop fighting and just open the damned door, I wanna get this over with as quickly as possible." I retorted.

They both turned to look at me, when Arin began to smile and laugh a little, shaking his head slightly.

"What's so funny?" I demanded to know.

"Nothing, just a girl taking charge kind of turns me on." He flipped the latch on the door, unbolting it.

"Oh eat me Arin." I hit him in the side, hard, with the handle of my fire axe, but it only seemed to make him laugh more.

"I know you want me to." He grinned and shoved the door open, casually stepping down the front steps and onto the road. Jeremy, Harlan and I followed suit.

A thick, ominous fog clung to the ground, seemingly untouched by our slow, cautious stride through it.

"This place is supposed to be full of the sick... What gives?" Arin asked, turning to look up at Jeremy, who scanned the vacant area carefully from what we could see.

"There's barely anyone out here!" He added on, as if his point didn't come across.

"I know." Jeremy replied inwardly.

"Maybe they got bored and left?" He joked nervously, looking around again.

Harlan shook his head. "No, these things don't get bored. They're good at playing the waiting game... Something else must have caught their attention and drove them away."

There was already a path through the cars that were wide enough to drive a large tank through, courteously from the Army that plowed their way through here about five days ago. I noticed that some of the infected were dressed in Army uniforms, walking with limps and empty stares, missing limbs like arms, or dragging themselves around because they were missing legs... It was a _nightmare._

"I don't remember so little cars being here, last time I saw the street was packed full of them," Jeremy mused thoughtfully.

"Well zombies aren't capable of moving cars, someone else must have come through without us knowing." _But if that was true, how could we__**not **__know that there were more people here? They would have come straight to the Safe House... Wouldn't they?_

"It's like the infection never happened." Harlan said in a dark voice, looking at the abandoned cars mounted on the sides of the streets and in the driveways of lonely houses. He suddenly pointed to a big white van in the driveway of a smaller house. "There's one!"

He jogged over to it and peered into the driver's side window, trying the door handle to find that it was locked, and looked back at us shaking his head. "Arin, could you smash the window so I could get in?"

Arin smiled, more than happy to oblige, and lifted the butt of his assault rifle into the air, taking aim on the untouched glass window.

"Wait a minute!" Jeremy yelled in a whispered hush, grabbing his arm swiftly. "It's locked."

Arin looked back at him. "So what if it's locked? That's why I'm smashing the window!"

He shook his head. "If you break the window, the alarm might go off. It will attract the infected and they'll come running from wherever it was they went to. Our safest bet is to just look for another car." He slowly let go of Arin's arm.

As they quibbled, I continued walking down the road, spotting a nice, black Honda Pilot. I looked through the window and saw a set of glorious keys, gleaming in the ignition.

"Hey guys!" I exclaimed, waving for them to come over to me. "What about this car? It's big enough for all of us, and it has enough rough for all our supplies. The keys are in the ignition."

They all came hurdling towards me, Jeremy grabbing at the front door and jumping in.

"Excellent! Everyone get in, _shotgun!_" Then slammed the door shut.

Arin smirked. "Guess I've got driver's seat. Get into the backseat kids."

Harlan sighed and opened the door for me, then followed into the backseat, closing the door gently.

Arin twisted the key in the ignition and the car roared to life, blowing conditioned air into our faces.

"Oh- thank _God_ for AC!" Arin blasted it up and began backing out of the driveway, when a loud groan came from the trunk. He immediately stopped and we all pulled out our weapons at once, pointing at the source of the noise.

"Please tell me that was one of you two." Arin asked hopefully.

I shook my head. "It's coming from the trunk, I see a blanket." I whispered back to him.

Just as I spoke, the bundle of blankets moved and groaned quietly.

"Sounds like a zombie, shoot it Aubrey." He demanded.

"Now wait, _Audrey_ check first. It might be someone that hasn't changed yet."Jeremy also demanded.

I slowly stretched out my hand towards the blanket, my pistol out of my holster and armed, when a bloody hand shot out from underneath it and grabbed me by my wrist.

I started screaming, trying to pull my arm away. "_Get it off me!_"

The hand let go and a man with bloodied clothing and a slightly unshaven face sat up, covering his ears with his hands.

"Jesus woman! Stop your screaming, I'm trying to sleep here!" He glared up at me with angered blue eyes.

I sat there, breathing heavily and staring at him wide-eyed, dumbfounded. "Wha- _What?.._."

Arin began laughing hysterically in the front seat, and I turned to glare at him.

"What's so funny now?"

"Just, the l-look on your face was-" He took in a deep breath, continuing his laughing. "Priceless!"

Jeremy hit him on the back of the bead to shut him up. "Control yourself." Then looked at the man in the trunk. "What's your name, sir?"

The unshaven man looked back at Jeremy and finally uncovered his ears. "The name's Carter Phillips. Who the hell are you people?" His eyes widened in sudden realization. "And what the _fuck_ are you doing with my car?" He snapped, cringing and squeezed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "Damnit all..." He mumbled painfully.

Arin chuckled. "A hangover is a pain in the ass isn't it?"

Carter nodded. "Damn straight it is. Only one way to fix it," He picked up a can of beer and opened it, waving it a little in the air. "Drink another beer!" And with that, he chugged it down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You lot obviously aren't zombified yet, or else you wouldn't know how to drive a car... So who the hell are you people?"

"I'm Jeremy Marlins. The driver's Arin Wilkis, then there's Harlan Rodgers and I think you're smart enough to guess who Audrey Jamison is."

Carter looked at me, making a strange face. "Yeah, the shrieker. I'll sure as shit remember _your _name."

I looked at him and smiled. "I'd prefer you just call me Audrey, unless you would want me giving you the lovely nickname of town drunkard, Mr. Phillips?"

Carter smirked, unimpressed. "Some lady _you_ are."

"Well you're not exactly a gentleman either if you don't mind me saying so." I turned back forward, placing my pistol back in its holster and my fire axe on my lap, crossing my arms over my chest.

Arin looked at us with a raised eyebrow. "Uh, alrighty then... How about we get to the Safe House now, if you kids will behave yourselves?" He began pulling out of the driveway again, rolling slowly down the street as if he were running low on gas.

"What? There was a Safe House just a few feet away from my car?" Carter slapped his forehead in disbelief. "God _damn_ this fog, I couldn't see my hand in front of my face yesterday!"

"Maybe it's 'cause you drank too much..." I muttered to myself.

Harlan glanced over his shoulder at him. "So have you been here long?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Rolled into town two days ago when those grave-loving bastards attacked me. So I camped out in my car with nothing but a gun and all the beer I could find in the houses," He laid back on his row of seating and closed his eyes. "Some shit this flu turned out to be."

"It's not a flu." I looked back at him, he immediately sat up straight, almost hitting his head on the ceiling of the car.

"Then what is it?"

I shrugged in response. "I don't know what it _is_, but I do know what it _isn't_." I turned back forward.

He chuckled in the backseat. "Well aren't you little Miss Preacher? Start talking about religion, I wanna hear what you say next."

I looked back at him again and smiled sweetly, pulling my pistol out of its holster to show him. His expression was unfazed, but uncertainty wafted into the tired bags under his eyes.

"Keep talking Mr. Phillips and you'll soon find my gun shoved up your-"

He laughed. "So we have a fighter too? This is going to be _interesting_."

I rolled my eyes and stared out the window at the foggy scenery. Little houses seemed to sway against the empty wind, turning into wooden creatures, depressed by being abandoned. Tree branches licked the cold air, moving swiftly with each rustle of leaves.

"Everyone, hop out and load up the car. Be back here in 10 minutes, if you are not back within 15 minutes, we're gonna leave you here." Arin announced, jumping out of the car with the rest of us, when he stopped to look back at me with that cheeky grin of his. "Well, you're an exception doll face, being the only girl alive as far as we know." He turned and walked up the creaky steps, chuckling at his jab.

My jaw tightened as I followed after him. _How much more crap can I take from him? The asshole…_

Carter finally managed to climb out from the backseat, with help from Harlan of course. Being drunk doesn't have all its advantages during a zombie-like virus, does it?

He followed me into the house, through the kitchen, past the living room, and for some reason, up the stairs.

"You just passed a bunch of boxes you could have grabbed."

"So did you." He replied.

"So you're following me, then?" I asked calmly, grabbing two small boxes of canned food and turned around to go back down the stairs, but stopped when Carter's arm blocked my only exit.

"I would appreciate it if you moved. We have work to do," I glanced him with an irritated expression.

He just seemed to shrug it off. "Where're you from, sweetheart?"

I sighed. _So he's a player, huh?_ "Move, Phillips." I demanded. Instead, he shifted his body so he completely blocked the staircase from me.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I'm not going to answer your question when it's not directed at me. My name is Audrey. Not sweetheart, not doll face, _not_ darling. Audrey."

"All right, _Audrey,_ where are you from?"

I huffed impatiently at him, staring past his shoulders down the stairs.

"I have a feeling we're going to be traveling together for quite a long time, I need to make sure that you guys aren't going to kill me in my sleep and steal my beer or something."

I tried to hide a little giggle that tried to emerge from my throat, ducking my face away so he couldn't see my slight smirk.

"I'm from here. What's it to you?"

He shrugged. "Just curious. Now, _here_ would be?..."

I raised an eyebrow at him dubiously, _this guy's__**serious**__? He doesn't even know where he is? Wait, why am I surprised? We found him in the back of a Honda Pilot with cases of beer and a gun without ammo..._

"Portland, Oregon. Figures you wouldn't know where you are. Men always tend to get lost." I finally managed to push past him and trotted down the stairs, and as persistent as he is, he still followed me.

"Jesus Christ Audrey, why do I have the feeling that you don't exactly like me?" His slightly buzzed tone sounded sarcastic.

"Oh no, have I _offended_ you in some way? I had _no intention_ of making you feel unwelcome." I rebottled his sarcasticness with some of my own.

"Alright. What have I done?" He stopped me again, blocking my way into the kitchen.

_He's really not going to __**quit**__, is he?_

"I know your type." I glared at him coldly. "You're a pompous, self-centered bastard that only cares for one thing; booze. You don't care that the world is falling apart, or the fact that the sky is pretty much falling down on you, just as long as you're drunk, you're totally fine."

I tried to shoving him with my shoulder, instead he swiftly grabbed them and held me up against the wall. causing me to drop the box I was carrying. I was stunned by how fast he moved, considering the booze still had affect on him, for I smelled it on his breath.

"Would you have some _decency_ to let me go?" I averted my eyes from him. "We both have work to do."

He shook his head and grinned mischievously. "Well now, aren't you just something else?" He mumbled.

I glanced up at him. "What makes you think that, Mr. Phillips?"

"Well for one thing you only met me ten minutes ago and already you've written me off as some ego-maniacal jerkwad that would rather drown in his cheap liquor with a smile on his face than be ripped to shreds by those shuffling freaks. Which is the better option, do you think?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Is there a third option where I could live?" I asked dryly.

"Second thing, in the ten minutes we've known each other you've refused to use my name. You keep calling me "Mr. Phillips."

"You prefer calling me sweetheart, and since you won't use my name properly I thought I'd just return the favor."

He leaned in close to me, so close where I could have drowned in his canned beer odor tingling his tongue away, but instead I smelled… Some sort of body wash. It had a pungent scent, but in the good kind of way, not the overbearing kind of way.

"And third thing is… I can't just seem to figure you out. What gives?"

"It's not that difficult to figure me out. All you need to know is that I don't like you, I won't trust you, and the less you talk to me the better chance you have of keeping your teeth inside your mouth."

"Or maybe," When I thought he couldn't lean in anymore, he found out how to. "Or maybe you're just too afraid to let me in, _sweetheart_." He whispered.

We stayed there for a moment, basking in the newfound silence we had discovered in each other when all we seemed to do was bicker and jab at one another.

"A-After you finish loading up the car," I stammered, "Let Jeremy know where you took a shower. We all need one Phillips." I shoved his arm out of the way and jogged outside with the two boxes clutched tightly in my twitchy hands.

Carter stood there, ignoring Audrey's orders, and instead pondered his own thoughts.

_I didn't think she smelled at all… How did she know I recently took a shower?_ He grinned at a sudden realization. _She didn't deny being afraid to let her guard down to me._

And with that, he picked up as many boxes as he could carry and called for someone to open the door for him. He couldn't help but smile more than he already was when Audrey came jogging up to him to help.


End file.
